4.  The applicants were born in 1949 and 1952 respectively and live in Muhr.
5.  The applicants were members of an agricultural association (Agrargemeinschaft). The agricultural estate of which they are joint owners, accounts for 835 of a total of 3654 shares in that association. The association covers some 377 hectares of land. According to the Government access to some of the land, situated at high altitudes, is difficult and is restricted for the major part of the year due to weather conditions. The applicants contested this. According to them access is possible for six to eight months per year.
6.  On 3 June 1983 the applicants filed a request to end their membership, asking for the partition of their property from the remainder of the agricultural association’s land. On 1 September 1983 another member of the agricultural association, L., also filed a request for partition.
7.  The first stage of partition proceedings serves to establish whether the request can be admitted. A rough examination has to be carried out in order to assess whether the cultivation of other parts of the agricultural association and its overall economic needs would not be jeopardized by the partition. At the end of these proceedings the request is either dismissed or admitted. In the second case, the partition proceedings in the narrower sense will follow.
8.  The Salzburg Regional Government acting as Agricultural Authority of First Instance (Landesregierung als Agrarbehörde I. Instanz, the “Agricultural Authority”) held hearings on both requests on 15 August 1984, 25 September and 17 December 1985, 5 February 1986 and 30 July 1986. Between hearings, expert opinions were commissioned.
9.  The Agricultural Authority dismissed the applicants’ request for partition on 7 November 1986 while it had admitted the other owner’s request on 14 October 1986. Upon the applicants’ appeal and after having obtained further clarification from them, the Regional Land Reform Board (Landesagrarsenat, the “Regional Board”) quashed the impugned decision on 5 June 1987 and remitted the case back to the Agricultural Authority.
10.  The Agricultural Authority obtained further expert opinions and held hearings on 16 March 1988 and 25 January 1989. It dismissed the applicants’ request for a second time on 2 January 1990.
11.  The applicants appealed again. The Regional Board, having obtained further expert opinions in particular on the question how the partition would affect the association’s hunting activities, held hearings on 14 December 1990 and on 21 February 1992. On the latter date the Regional Board granted the appeal and decided that partition proceedings were to be instituted.
12.  The agricultural association and some of its members lodged a complaint with the Constitutional Court (Verfassungsgerichtshof). On 12 October 1992 the Constitutional Court declined to deal with the complaint, and transferred it to the Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgerichtshof) which dismissed it on 20 April 1993.
13.  The second stage of the proceedings concerns the partition itself. If the members of the agricultural association cannot agree to the partition plan, as in the present case, investigative proceedings have to be conducted, including surveying of the outer boundaries of the association, braking down the entire land of the association into quality sections, valuating the different sections and elaborating partition alternatives, each of which has to be evaluated by experts on forestry, farming, hunting and agricultural technology. If necessary, compensation for other members of the association has to be fixed. In the present case the partition proceedings were conducted jointly for the applicants’ request and for L.’s request.
14.  As the Agricultural Authority failed to issue a decision within the statutory time-limit, the applicants applied for a transfer of jurisdiction (Devolutionsantrag) to the superior authority on 11 May 1994. The Regional Board allowed the application on 15 July 1994 and, consequently, became competent to conduct the proceedings.
15.  Subsequently, the Regional Board carried out surveying measures between July 1995 and December 1996. On the basis of the results a hearing was held on 7 February 1997. Subsequently, ownership relations, which had been in place for many years, had to be established on order to draw the outer boundaries of the association. As a next step the land of the entire association had to be divided into quality sections. This involved the taking of expert opinions and on-site inspections which were carried out between July and September 1998. The applicants and other parties filed comments and objections. A number of hearings were also held. A hearing on 10 September 1999 concluded the valuation of the land involved. As a last step partition alternatives were established. Out of four alternatives initially presented, two were elaborated in more detail. An expert opinion on those two was discussed at a hearing on 14 February 2000. As a result further expert opinions were commissioned. The applicants then submitted detailed comments.
16.  On 29 September 2000 the Regional Board held a further hearing and, having discussed the expert opinions, dismissed the applicants’ request for partition.
17.  On 12 March 2003 the Constitutional Court quashed the Regional Board’s decision, finding that some of its members had not been independent and impartial in that they had acted at the same time as decision-makers and as experts.
18.  Thereupon the Regional Board resumed proceedings and appointed new experts whose opinions were discussed at a hearing on 24 April 2004. Following a further on-site inspection and further hearings, it issued a partition scheme on 18 March 2005. The applicants appealed, complaining that the scheme provided for the imposition of easements on their share of land. The agricultural association and some of its member also appealed.
19.  On 7 December 2005 the Supreme Land Reform Board (Oberster Agrarsenat) amended the Regional Board’s decision as regards one particular easement, but dismissed the remainder of the appeals. It found inter alia that the easements in respect of the property at issue had been established by a sales contract concluded in 1988. The valuation of the land at issue was correct and moreover the applicants had not objected to it at the hearing before the Regional Board.
20.  Subsequently the applicants lodged a complaint with Administrative Court on 3 February 2006. On 19 July 2007 the Administrative Court dismissed the complaint. The judgment was served on the applicants’ counsel on 3 August 2007.